31 So. 3d 733 - Zommer v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We must exercise care not to expand aggravators so that they run afoul of the Eighth Amendment. As recently reiterated by the U.S. Supreme Court, “States must give narrow and precise definition to the aggravating factors that can result in a capital sentence.... Th[is] rule[ ] vindicate^] the underlying principle that the death penalty is reserved for a narrow category of crimes and offenders.” Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 568-69 , 125 S.Ct. 1183 , 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) (“Because the death penalty is the most severe punishment, the Eighth Amendment applies to it with special force. Capital punishment must be limited to those offenders who commit ‘a narrow category of the most serious crimes’ and whose extreme culpability makes them ‘the most deserving of execution.’ ” (citations omitted)); see also Tuilaepa v. California, 512 U.S. 967, 972 , 114 S.Ct. 2630 , 129 L.Ed.2d 750 (1994) (holding that in order for an aggravating circumstance to not be constitutionally infirm, it “may not apply to every defendant convicted of a murder; it must apply only to a subclass of defendants convicted of murder”).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 71 So. 3d 802 - Baker v. State